The captain of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship "cried like a baby"
as he hugged its chaplain just hours after the boat hit rocks, the luxury
liner's priest revealed.

Father Raffaele Malena said he was among the last to leave the ship at around 1.30am local time on Saturday and then stayed "close to the injured" in the tiny harbour of Giglio.

"I descended on the rope ladder. I was picked up by a little lifeboat," he said.

Around an hour later, the captain, Franceso Schettino, appeared.

"I spoke to the captain. He embraced me for about a quarter of an hour and cried like a baby," Father Malena told French magazine Famille Chrétienne.

"Of course, it's a case of human error because shouldn't have been so close to the island," he said of the disaster, in which 11 people died 21 are missing. "But it's not for me to judge. The experts will see to that."

But he staunchly denied some reported claims that the crew had been incompetent and unhelpful in helping terrified passengers escape to lifeboats.

"These boys, my boys, are not only heroes, they are super heroes," he said.

"My boys knew they were going to die but they didn't abandon their posts."

"There were heroes of all nationalities … They were shaking with fear. They were threatened. They were telling people to stop boarding lifeboats which were full but people were getting in anyway," he said.

"(The press) can throw as much mud as they want on their faces, but they can't say the boys didn't work, that they weren't trained."

At one stage, he saw a little girl fall down. "I took her in my arms, reassured her and returned her to her mother further back. They got into a lifeboat."

Recounting the crash, he said that he was returning to his cabin after dinner when "I felt a big shock, a noise. I fell to the ground, as the boat rocked from side to side … The electricity cut out."

A few minutes later the boat turned violently. "The captain cast the anchor," he said. "Some – who consider themselves experts – say he made a mistake; for others, he did the right thing as the boat turned on itself and thus we didn't hit the rocks."

At this stage the boat was around 150 to 200 metres from the land.

"I saw a few members of the crew who were working in the engine rooms. They told me: "We are all going to die. On the hull we have a 70m-long gash with a rock inside and another about 10m long."

The priest said he went to pray for a few moments in the ship's chapel before leaving the ship.

"Baby Jesus was still in his manger. I told him, crying like a child: 'We are all about to die. I'm asking you for nothing short of a miracle. Please let as few people die as possible!'"